Sword & sorcery is fun to write, and D&D pretty well killed it. The anthology I talked about, Conquering Swords: the New Sword and Sorcery, is coming out from Prometheus Press, maybe from its Pyr imprint—details as I get them, and since their deadline is July, I’ll figure they’ll be out in December or January.
How did D&D kill sword & sorcery? They decided they were going into fiction writing and did it with all-rights purchase of books by novice writers—insisting, apparently, that they use the bollixed-up mythology of D&D, ie, sound as much like them as possible—which mixes mythologies, assigns incorrect attributes to ancient gods, and has its own strange mythos of how-things-work-with-magic.
General readers hated it. Or at least didn’t buy it. Pretty soon word was out among booksellers, don’t buy the stuff, it won’t sell, and legitimate sword and sorcery died the death. Among the only survivors was my own Morgaine and Vanye, and Abbey’s Thieves’ World, plus a few others of note, like Michael Moorcock’s Elric, etc, and Robert Howard. But no few of these have gone out of print, and the field now languishes entirely.
Time, I say, for a revival. Bad books may drive out good, but sooner or later, good will bob to the surface again, and thrive until the next spate of commercialism takes over.
Of course, they may not like what I’ve done. We’ll see.
Writing an s&s story is a great way to clear the brain after a convention, I’ll say that.
Cherryh wrote the above on her blog, and I just ran across it.
I was curious what my informed Planet Stories pals' perspectives would be on this? Her thinking seems to be a bit confused, or at least not fully spelled out (viz., How could the bad fiction be both successful and unsuccessful at the same time?), so I look to my pulpy betters for insight.
By the by, reading some of Cherryh's comments below the blog post, she certainly is a big fan of some of the PS greats.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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LOL. I think it's b~!+%$@s, basically.
And I say that with the greatest respect for CJ Cherryh, who is a Planet Stories supporter and an author of one of our introductions.
D&D books have _always_ sold well to the general public. I frankly think most modern fiction authors would be shocked by how many copies some of their paperbacks sell, both upon new release and in reprint editions.
We are investigating launching a Pathfinder line of fiction, and I can virtually guarantee you that the books will sell an order of magnitude better than Planet Stories has to date.
All of Howard's and most of Moorcock's S&S books are currently in print. The last few years have also seen reprints of C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner's seminal works, as well as new S&S from the likes of James Enge and the contributors to Black Gate magazine, which is virtually dedicated to the sub-genre.
This new collection, while certainly welcome, is actually sort of a Johnny Come Lately to the S&S revival that's been brewing for a few years now.
D&D has more to do with the resurgence and continued viability of an 80-year-old genre than perhaps any other factor I can think of.
I think she is way off, here.
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Well she might mean the books WoTC put out for D&D Eberron and some of the magic settings. I'll agree they weren't great but they weren't as bad as that I didnt think.
Granted I never paid full price always got em with something else be it a card promo box or at a con but still I wouldn't call em genre killing.
Heh...thanks Mona. I love it when my pot-stirring is rewarded by people in high places. :P
Appendix N, Ms. Cherryh? (From reading the later comments, I also get the feeling that particular unpleasant experiences may somewhat color her perspective on the matter.) Now to find which intro she wrote.
Howdy Olshriek, I don't remember seeing you around.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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From reading the comments, I think she has a legitimate grievance in that the old Giants in the Earth column in Dragon clearly appropriated some of her characters without her permission and without paying her a dime. That's pretty shady, though I suspect it was done out of fannish exuberance and lack of understanding of IP law by the essentially amateur staff at the magazine at the time.
Still, she's right to be aggrieved in that circumstance, though it's a bit curious that she's still holding it against D&D all these years later.
Oh, of course: she wrote the NW Smith intro, which makes perfect sense.
You think things have changed for the genre that much in the past 6 months?
It still makes me kind of sad to hear that the Pf fiction line will so thoroughly outsell PS. Not that I don't want Pf fiction to succeed, but sad in a certain way. Not sad in a Cherryh-rant-post sort of way. ;)
Still, she's right to be aggrieved in that circumstance, though it's a bit curious that she's still holding it against D&D all these years later.
Maybe Pathfinder can heal yet another wound...
What I find interesting/ironic about Cherryh's comments - for me - is that I have never been a fan of her fantasy work - whether you call it Swords and Sorcery style or D&D-esque or whatever.
This isn't to say I hate it or anything - I think it just comes from the fact that only novel I read had too many similarities to Mercedes Lackey's work at that moment in time. Probably something I should revisit since I'm likely undervaluing based on one read admittedly.
However, her Sci-Fi stuff I have loved. The Chanur series, Downbelow Station, and the first Foreigner series (among others) have been interesting, great reads. She can pack some hard science ideas in there.
She has been more of a Sci-Fi writer first and fantasy second for me. So, her whole "back to roots" discussion doesn't ring forcefully for me, I'm afraid.
I think she's missed the point. The big competition to the S&S subgenre of fantasy have been other works of fantasy and other fiction that took over the interest of fans. Examples might include popular books, cartoons, movies and comics like:
Neil Gaiman's Sandman (and a heckuva lot of his fiction)
the anime genre as a whole (ever-increasing popularity with young fans)
the Harry Potter series (probably the biggest "threat" ever)
the Lord of the Rings movie release
Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett
Redwall & sequels (highly successful children's books; got its own cartoon well before Morgaine unfortunately)
While I feel bad that she got some of her characters portrayed without her permission and in violation of the law, wouldn't that, if anything help sell more copies of her work?
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Interesting,
Isn't any 'for hire' work supposed to work within its rules? I mean if I were to write "Seoni and the Revealing Neckline" for Pathfinder and Seoni drew upon the powers of hell and yelled bad Latin phrases while waving a wand, it wouldn't be Pathfinder anymore than having an entire story with the characters fully dressed would be an Ed Greenwood story. ;-) So Tiamat having 3 heads in the realms, or Tyr being blinded, is what you expect the world of the Realms to have.
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My understanding, from reading other authorblogs, is that since the multi-book epic fantasy series took over S&S in the late eighties/early nineties, the big publishers have been somewhat unwilling to publish individual standalone S&S fantasy novels (unless the author is well-known enough to have a guaranteed audience).
I suspect this has more to do with the Belgariad/Malloreon, Wheel of Time, Sword of Truth, etc. than Drizzt.
I wanna be the next Tolkien!
Kinda funny, though, how the first D&D fiction was the Dragonlance trilogy, which has its own unique mythology and gods, and ISN'T an amalgam of real-world gods, cultures, and magic (especially compared to the Forgotten Realms).
Kinda funny, though, how the first D&D fiction was the Dragonlance trilogy, which has its own unique mythology and gods, and ISN'T an amalgam of real-world gods, cultures, and magic (especially compared to the Forgotten Realms).
Actually, the original Dragonlance books are full of real world religious references. Specifically Mormonism, Tracy Hickman is a devout Morman and there are a lot of references if you know what to look for. Some of them he speaks about himself in the Annotated Chronicles. I don't recall specifics, it's been a couple years since I read it. I've believe that the Annotated Legends has more, but haven't read that.
As to Sword & Sorcery I find very little of D&D fiction to really fall into the definition.
I'm talking about how the 1e Deities & Demigods has the Norse, Central American, Japanese, Chinese, and other real-world mythoi, bastardized into a D&D-ish format and described in D&D terms for D&D characters to worship. I'm not talking about "hey this fantasy god seems a lot like this Earth deity"--you can't get away from that, there are only so many deity concepts, you're going to run into similarities between Earth and fictional worlds.
Good distinction.
I was never crazy about those real world Deities & Demigods pantheons. Don't know anyone who ever actually used them, well a few used the Norse Gods, but beyond that...
I was never crazy about those real world Deities & Demigods pantheons. Don't know anyone who ever actually used them, well a few used the Norse Gods, but beyond that...
Oh, they were great. My buddy was trying to do a war of the gods, with our characters pawns and graduating on up to peers. It was epic, a lot of fun, and eventually never finished as guys interests petered out and my buddy had to move away.
Still, it was fun, and a real good way for a bunch of midwest pre-teens to gain a little perspective on foreign cultures.
Actually...I think there's a kernel of the truth in there, but she misapplies the reason and it's only half to blame. Ranting about a subject like this, you're either going to have to go after creators or fans and between the two, Cherryh made the only choice that wouldn't send her off to the McCaffrey Gulag.
Tolkien's work put a fairly broad lock on what people expect from the fantasy genre already and the D&D books, along with their gamer fans, locked incredibly specific details into the fan perceptions of fantasy tropes. Considering the sort of 'unorthodox' fantasy work she does, I'm sure Cherryh has gotten a few fans approaching her to 'correct' some details in her work that were contrary to the world according to D&D. That seems to be the basic thread running through this post.
Neil Gaiman, Terry Prachet, Harry Potter Writer: the work of these authors is so intrinsically contrary to D&D/Tolkien brand fantasy that they have some wiggle room to insert their own distillations of the classic tropes. A book that so much as smells like LotR or D&D though...the fans are going to violently demand a level of system compatibility. In that sort of playing field, a lot of authors are going to compound the problem by serving up heaping portions of the same old while an author like Cherryh with a unique take on the genre falls by the wayside.
Cherryh wrote the above on her blog, and I just ran across it.
I was curious what my informed Planet Stories pals' perspectives would be on this? Her thinking seems to be a bit confused, or at least not fully spelled out (viz., How could the bad fiction be both successful and unsuccessful at the same time?), so I look to my pulpy betters for insight.
I just followed the link above and I did not see the blog you are referring to. Do you have to do a search for it?
No, the link was directly to the post. A search for it failed so I
I just followed the link above and I did not see the blog you are referring to. Do you have to do a search for it?
Cherryh wrote the above on her blog, and I just ran across it.
I was curious what my informed Planet Stories pals' perspectives would be on this? Her thinking seems to be a bit confused, or at least not fully spelled out (viz., How could the bad fiction be both successful and unsuccessful at the same time?), so I look to my pulpy betters for insight.
My bookmark to it is also coming up blank - maybe the site changed or the blog post was removed or archived?
My bookmark to it is also coming up blank - maybe the site changed or the blog post was removed or archived?I just followed the link above and I did not see the blog you are referring to. Do you have to do a search for it?
Cherryh wrote the above on her blog, and I just ran across it.
I was curious what my informed Planet Stories pals' perspectives would be on this? Her thinking seems to be a bit confused, or at least not fully spelled out (viz., How could the bad fiction be both successful and unsuccessful at the same time?), so I look to my pulpy betters for insight.
Maybe she heard of the feedback she was getting and decided to take it down?
Well, if it was archived, no search turned it up. Happily, I copied the entirety of the post above in the OP, so all you're missing out on are the comments that were attached.
Well, if it was archived, no search turned it up. Happily, I copied the entirety of the post above in the OP, so all you're missing out on are the comments that were attached.
Ah, who needs it than. Good job.
Hey all,
here's my two cents worth.
I think that D&D indeirectly hurt S&S back in the 80s.
We used to joke back then that when S&S was good it was untouchable.
and when it was bad it was D&D.
Maybe this isn't fair, but that was how a lot of us looked at it.
I see part of that being just plain snobs and part of it was that some of those early D&D tie in books were pretty lame.
I myself (if unfairly) saw them as simply commercials for TSR products just like Star Wars, Star Trek, War Hammer, Mech Warrior ect are all fictionalized as part of a product line.
D&D, Raven Loft, The Federation, The Empire ect. are all pre-exisitng universes from other forms of Media.
And as an outsider I saw these books as inferior to what was being created from scratch.
I know that this is/was unfair to these "products", but I saw them as products. Of course everyone who publishes is trying to sell me something, but for whatever reasons I looked down on these kinds of books and wouldn't buy them. I mean Greg Bear, Timothy Zahn and lots of other people write these things and these guys are already well known for there works outside of these "media-tie ins".
Shelf space is limited in a physical book store and what sells takes up the most space.
I live in Germany and a perfect example is our "mega bookstore" down town.
They have reserved some serious shelf space for english language SF and Fantasy. But most of this space is taken up by...
War Hammer
Role Playing tie-ins
film tie-ins
Terry Goodkind
Terry Pratchet
Harry Potter and all those Harry Potter Type books.
Metrosexual Vampire boyfriends, Goth Chick lit and paranormal romance.
ect.
The SF is mostly....
Star Wars
Star Trek
Mech Warrior
War Hammer
Douglas Adams
Peter F. Hamilton mega page multi volume epics
ect.
So we see that the market has greatly changed.
What sells get the space.
What doesn't sell gests sold on-line and maybe as POD.
And don't forget that up until the end of the 80s almost every dept. store, drug store and super market had tons of paperback space which has disappeared. so this allowed for (IMHO) much more diversity.
On one rack you'd find Thomas Disch next to John Norman next to Perry Rhodan next to Harlan Ellison next Theodore Sturgeon next to Damon Knight next to Heinlein next to Edgar Rice Burroughs ect. ect. ect.
and now space is limited and ruled by what sells best. They don't (IMHO) take any risks anymore.
So I wouldn't say that D&D directly destroyed S&S.
D&D was simply the forerunner of this market shift.
Fantasy and SF have become multi-media. When I was a kid and you needed a Fantasy or SF fix, you had to read a book.
But now that itch also gets scratched by DVDs, role playing and computer/video games.
This in turn influences your reading tastes.
You have to decide if a 12 year old in 1973 had the same interests or tastes as a 12 year old today. And as Isaac Asimov once said "the golden age is 12 years old".
Even though my tastes and interests have grown and changed during my lifetime, the foundation was layed over 37 years ago.
So when I see that "genre fiction" doen't orbit around my world view I have at times lashed out at it and accused it of being inferior to what came before.
So, even if I hate it, we have simply had a transition from the "genre" being almost entirely dominated by the written word to a "genre" that encompasses several different media which have cross polinated each other to the point (IMHO) of being inseperable from one another.
So yea! F#!ö€ng D&D ruined everything!! LOL
Ok, that's enough disjointed rambling.
Take care.
Doug
'I live in Germany and a perfect example is our "mega bookstore" down town.
They have reserved some serious shelf space for english language SF and Fantasy. But most of this space is taken up by...
War Hammer
Role Playing tie-ins
film tie-ins
Terry Goodkind
Terry Pratchet
Harry Potter and all those Harry Potter Type books.
Metrosexual Vampire boyfriends, Goth Chick lit and paranormal romance.
ect.
The SF is mostly....
Star Wars
Star Trek
Mech Warrior
War Hammer
Douglas Adams
Peter F. Hamilton mega page multi volume epics
ect.'...
Sounds exactly like our bookstores in Australia...tragic...sigh :-(
Hmm,what killed S&S? A general lack of imagination maybe(D&D being a really good example!)...just like Sci-fi which disappeared up it's own backside about 1978 in my opinion. But of course,you guys all love Gary Gygax and Glen Cook and all that...so...'what a drag it is getting old',said Mick.
@ elflock.....
I was back home in Ohio last October and it wasn't much better than over here in Germany.
BTW..
I despise media tie-in books. ST, SW. SG:SG2 D&D ect.
But I love those "Black Comapany" books from Glenn Cook!
There's still tons of good stuff being written. Consider Steven Erikson, George R. R. Martin, David Weber, and Elizabeth Moon.
Granted, not all of their stuff is new, but The Deed of Paksenarrion is obviously based on a D&D campaign (you can even identify the spells the paladin is using), and there's lots of good sword & sorcery in all of their fantasy. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Granted, there's a ton of that paranormal romance crap out there, but there's still a lot of good stuff, too.
The video killed the radio star.
I thought that if anything "killed" heroic fantasy/swords-and-sorcery back in the mid-80's or so, it was not D&D but simply the way the books became a glut on the market, with second and third rate writers all imitating "the last big seller" until it collapsed under its own weight?
Bah. What killed S&S is that publishers subordinated the market into Extruded Fantasy Product.
It's gotta have elves, dwarves, Dire Magics and the Hero Farm Boy with the Magic Gobstopper of Plot Importance, going through The Quest Ticket Punching.
D&D is one permutation of this...but the reality is that they found a lower common denominator that took less work to publish and sold better.
CJ's work has always been the books that, largely, she wanted to write, or contractual obligation books she wrote to finish out a contract with a publishing house. You can easily tell the difference.
The market for publishing, after Thor Power Tools, quickly moved away from backlists of books the authors found interesting being a revenue source and into a tax liability. They then looked for things that would be reliable sellers.
But D&D isn't to blame for that, nor any other media tie in.
She's also wrong about the Work For Hire nature of the contracts on those books.